CHAPTER FOURTEEN PRESENT DAY
“The last four years we have spent at Canyon High have set the foundation for who we will become,” I read. Jesse watches me pace from his perch on the train’s platform, idly playing with the zipper on his jacket.
“Too passive,” he calls out. “Also, corny.”
I stop. Scowl, rereading the introduction. I pull the pen out of my hairband and make a note to rephrase.
The wind howls between the six abandoned shipping containers on the train tracks. The train holding them lies in front of a long row of warehouses, most of which have been empty since Ward’s economic collapse in the eighties.
The train tracks are also the site of Ward’s most notorious massacre.
In 1997, six men highjacked a passenger train on these rails and slaughtered every single person onboard, including the conductor.
As the story goes, the engine propelled the train past half a dozen towns before it finally rolled to a stop in Ward.
They say on stormy nights, you can hear the train’s phantom whistle, the hissing and screeching of the brakes grinding to their ultimate stop.
“Should I replace ‘who we will become’ with ‘who we are’?” I tap the pen against my lip. Auditions for graduation speakers are next Wednesday, and so far, I hate every word I’ve written.
“If this is your revenge for my comment at the diner, consider it carried out successfully.” Jesse hops to the ground. The stones beneath the tracks crunch under his boots. I think of child-sized bones sticking out of the earth and shudder. “You said you wanted me to show you how to fight.”
“I also want you to help me with my speech. I can contain multitudes. A plethora of motives.”
“A plethora, huh?” Jesse plucks the pen from my grip and flips it between his fingers. “Cuddling with your thesaurus again?”
My entire search history contains the phrase “synonym for—,” but I scowl at Jesse anyway. “Are you calling me dumb?”
“No.” He tucks the pen back into my hairband, and I momentarily freeze as his jacket brushes my arm, the heat of his body radiating across the diminishing space between us. “I’m calling you a maniac.”
“The auditions are in a little over a week. I haven’t even started practicing my delivery yet,” I despair.
Jesse fixes himself into the path I’ve been pacing, leaving me no choice but to look up from the draft of my speech. His brows appear an inch away from disappearing into his hairline. “Sorry, did I hallucinate the conversation where you said that you were attacked less than twenty-four hours ago?”
“It wasn’t technically an attack.” The worst damage was to my sleep, which eluded me all night. Oh, and the utter destruction of my favorite pair of shoes, thanks to the mud in the duck pond.
Two new pages had appeared in my mother’s journal, but they were useless.
Just more random times and dates. At least it had confirmed Jesse’s theory about the shadows somehow being connected to the journal.
“Besides, I can’t ask the graduation committee to give me an extension on account of my curse.
Life goes on. I’m not losing any more of my senior year to this. ”
“Right, right. Can’t lose your senior year, but you’re just fine with losing your life.”
I turn to leave. I’ve had my dose of browbeating for the next century thanks to Alex and the others. Jesse can mock me all he wants—I’m just not sticking around to catch the live act.
“Wait!” Jesse cuts in front of me, sending stones skidding into my ankles.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t go on with your life.
Just prioritize. This thing … Mansour, do you understand how much power it takes to do what it did at the drive-in theater?
And this is the warm-up. If you don’t focus, you’re gonna have to read your speech from six feet under. ”
A few days ago, a line like that would’ve had me in tears. Now, I glare at Jesse, lips pursed.
“Alright.” I tuck my paper and pen beneath one of the tracks. “Teach me to defend myself.”
Jesse shrugs off his jacket and tosses it carelessly to the side. A long-sleeve thermal covers his arms, catching on the waistband of his jeans. “Put your dukes up, Sour Patch.”
We circle each other. The wind ruffles Jesse’s hair.
Compelled to break the rising tension, I ask, “Do you usually fight girls at creepy abandoned train tracks?”
“Nah, I’m a creepy warehouse sort of guy.” Jesse crooks his fingers. “Swing at me.”
I jab halfheartedly in his direction. He knocks my arm away with a flick. “Mansour.”
“I’m trying.” I jab again. The opportunity to pry into Jesse’s life is much more compelling than hitting him. For now, anyway. “Seriously, though, Jesse. Where do you go to have fun? I’ve never seen you hanging out anywhere. Not at the drive-in or Don’s Donuts or any of the festivals.”
Jesse moves in a swift strike, wrapping an arm around my waist and cutting my feet out from under me.
I shriek as I careen backward, grabbing handfuls of his thermal.
His arm tightens, keeping my back from hitting the rocks.
“Definitely not Don’s Donuts,” he says, his face heart-stoppingly close to mine.
My breath stutters. Every thought in my head temporarily offloads to make room for just one.
He’s so ridiculously pretty.
I smack at his chest until he straightens, setting me back on my feet.
“It’s not going to work,” I huff, dusting off my blouse. I’m wearing black leggings under white shorts and a pink peplum blouse. An outfit more fitting for a trip to the mall than a haunted train track.
“What?”
“You’re trying to piss me off so I won’t ask questions. It’s your pattern.”
Jesse blinks, nonplussed. I punch his shoulder. “Point.”
“Point,” he concedes. He lifts a brow, an action of his I’ve come to associate with the need to proceed with extreme caution. All of Jesse’s limited range of emotion is contained in that arched brow. “Paying attention to my patterns, are you?”
“You might be out of practice, but there’s this social phenomenon where you notice things about people you spend time around.
” I extract a strand of hair from my mouth, keeping a close eye on Jesse’s hips.
It might bruise his ego to hear it, but sparring isn’t much different than dancing.
The body always has a tell, and Jesse’s lies in his sharp, narrow hips.
“Oh yeah?” Rocks crunch under Jesse’s boots. The energy between us shifts, so subtly it takes me a full minute to notice. “Or are you collecting gossip on the school freak to carry back to your friends?”
I frown, lowering my fists. “Of course not.” I kick a pebble at his shin. “Besides, if I was going to gossip about you, I’d start with your abysmal taste in T-shirts.”
Jesse laughs. A startlingly rich sound. Momentarily dumbfounded, I realize I’ve never heard Jesse laugh before. Not a real laugh, anyway. It seems to surprise him, too, and he schools his features quickly.
“Since my personal life is keeping you up at night …” He braces his hips, and I lift my arms just in time to block his swing.
“My dad needs a lot of help around the mortuary. Between the small matter of being soulless and the dead bodies, I don’t have a whole ton of time for fun.
” He lifts a shoulder, as though he didn’t just utter one of the saddest sentences I’ve ever heard.
The setting sun spears through the clouds. Gold glints off the landscape of metal around us. A gust of air hits the train with a mournful rattle.
A shadow moves behind one of the train’s windows, and my heart leaps into my throat. I watch for a face to form behind the glass or bloody fingers to press to the cracked pane. But the clouds converge again, casting the train in gray.
“Did they ever catch them?” I murmur, unable to tear my attention from the window.
“Who?”
“The people who did it. The murderers.”
Jesse glances at the train. “Two of them. Nabbed them trying to pawn some of the stolen jewelry. But the leader was never found.”
A horrible thought claws forward, born from the abyss in the human brain that collects the ugliest and scariest parts of reality. The crater where our fears leak out at night, conjuring killers in every creak and demons in the dark.
“What if they’re still in there?”
Jesse drifts closer to me. Worry tightens his mouth. “Hey, are you alright?”
“What if their souls are trapped, Jesse?” I stare at the window until my eyes burn. “What if the passengers never left?”
And then they come, a battalion of terrors marching into truth, pulling me under.
What if my mother never left the house, what if I never left the house, what if I’m still there and it’s toying with me, letting me die slowly behind that door in a room of crawling walls while my reality rots into dreams, and it’s feeding on me as I die, savoring me like a meal it’s been denied for too long—
My entire body jerks. The door. The door, the door, the door—
Cold hands frame my face, easing my gaze away from the train. I become aware of Jesse’s thumbs sliding over my cheeks, catching stray tears.
“Hey, look at me.” Dark eyes bore into mine. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the icy burn. I focus on the feel of Jesse’s hands, firm and unyielding. A frost has invaded deep behind my ribs, consuming every molecule of warmth inside me.
Jesse’s breath brushes my ear, drifting against the crook of my neck. “Think of something good.”
Nothing is good. Nothing has been good in so long. Except …
“My dad … he tried to make me French toast this morning,” I whisper.
“Tell me about it.”
“I do most of the cooking at our house. Even before my mom died, I was the one who made sure he was eating and taking his blood pressure meds. But then I stopped nagging him a few weeks ago, and I think he’s convinced himself that I got fed up with him for being so absent.
So scattered.” The fugue of dread lifts from me, inch by inch.
“I came downstairs after he left for work today, and the smoke alarm was in the sink. Breadcrumbs and milk everywhere. But there on the counter was a perfect plate of French toast and a bottle of sugar-free maple syrup. He always uses black molasses honey, so I knew the syrup was for me. After I ate, I went to clean up and throw away the napkin. I found ten pieces of burned toast in the trash.” My voice hitches.
“He emptied our bread drawer trying to make me French toast.”
Jesse tips my chin up. “This isn’t forever, Sour Patch. We’re going to crack this. Your dad will still be there when we do.”
When my breath stabilizes, he pulls away, raking his hair against the breeze. My cheeks warm. Another Mina Mansour breakdown, served farm fresh and ready.
Jesse clears his throat and resumes his fighting stance. “Have you given any more thought to getting in contact with your aunt?” He gestures for me to put my fists back up.
“Absolutely not.”
“Why do you turn green every time I ask about your aunt? What happened at the end of your trip? When you got to the villa.” Jesse blocks my weak blow, shoving a finger into my shoulder. “Point.”
I kick at him, only for him to hook his foot under my knee and yank. I fall onto my side, landing on a pile of pebbles. “Hey!”
Jesse looms over me, a dark silhouette against the tumultuous sky. “A toddler could lay you out. Hit me like you mean it. I can take it.” A private smile plays at the corner of his lips. “And answer my question.”
Pushing back to my feet, I snap, “You sure are making a lot of demands.” My punch manages to graze his arm.
When I swing, Jesse catches my wrist, drawing me to him.
I cage my breath when my chest bumps into his, my wrist still held fast in his grip.
This close, every beautiful shade of brown in his eyes comes to life.
Layers of sunshine and honey swirling in the gaze of a boy who would hate to hear what I had just thought about his eyes.
“Finish your story,” he murmurs. He studies me, his lips close enough for his breath to brush my forehead. Once again, my heart performs a complicated flip in my chest and misses the landing, plummeting straight to my feet.
He shouldn’t be looking at me like that.
I use the leverage to drive my fist into his solar plexus. Jesse releases me with a grunt, and I finally smile.
“Fine.” Last I left off, Khalto Safa and I had just arrived at the Haikal villa in El Agamy. “Strange things kept—”